


An Itch You Can't Scratch

by FeatherBlack (jatty)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Dust Baths, Gen, House Hunting, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Nesting, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Oblivious Crowley (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 21:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20365087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jatty/pseuds/FeatherBlack
Summary: Crowley's wings are molting and he's less than pleased about it.His nesting instincts are kicking in,  also, though he's not exactly aware of that yet.Where does Aziraphale stand in all of this? Apparently somewhere in the South Downs with some other bloke.





	An Itch You Can't Scratch

Crowley awoke one morning—alright, alright fine, it was late afternoon—with an itch. His eye twitched from it and every now and then his left foot would spasm as the unreachable irritation fluttered through him. He shook himself free of the silken fabrics of his sheets, slithered out from under the black duvet stuffed with down, and made his way into his kitchen to stare out the window over his sink. The setting sun heated the room with luminous yellow beams and Crowley stood motionless (aside from the twitching) soaking it in. Part of him wanted to coil up in the windowsill—there was more than enough room—and bask properly, but there was that itch again.

His right shoulder jerked this time and he brought his hand absently up to scratch it. A sharp pin prick jabbed underneath his fingernail and he recoiled with a hiss, staring down at his hand. A small, black feather was now lodged beneath his fingernail, now weeping blood from the quill which stuck it.

Well that just wouldn’t do…

He pulled the feather away and dropped it into the basin of his sink, shaking his hand until the small injury healed itself—the drop of blood receding back underneath his nail, back beneath his skin, into his useless veins. 

Crowley watched the sun set without blinking, appearing to anyone who may have passed a glance up toward his window as a statue, an unnerving fixture regarding the world with unseeing eyes.

In reality, he was staring off toward the sea—staring through buildings and trees and hills, searching, while his body twitched here and there with the urge to scratch.

Bath. 

Instinct, really, not a thought.

Itchy, itchy, itchy…

It was late when he finally pried himself away from his window. He dressed himself with the snap of his fingers and made his way down to the ground floor of his building, willing the lift to descend uninterrupted despite the numerous calls for it on the other floors. Honestly, who else was trying to go out at this hour? No one with any proper business to attend to.

Crowley climbed into his Bentley, the speakers immediately belting out lyrics he’d long since memorized against his will. The car drove itself, understanding where he need to go.

Not much longer and he had arrived, the car rolling to a stop and the engine going silent—lights shutting off of their own accord—in the middle of a farmer’s recently tilled field. The earth was cracked and torn, rippled into mounds like miniature mountains all around. Absently, Crowley started kicking his snake-skin boots through the crumbly dirt. He dragged the toe of his boot through the little mounds, dug his heel into the ground to loosen the dried earth. For at least an hour he scraped and kicked and dug until a large ovular patch of flat earth lay at his feet. Dried, smooth earth with no rough pebbles or sharp rocks jutting out, just little clumps of dirt and a thick layer of dust.

Crowley pitched a heavy sigh, then laid down in it, tucking his sunglasses into the inside pocket of his black jacket so he could stare up at the stars. Moments later, there was a power surge that knocked out the lights for all of the surrounding villages and towns—even the big city went dark. Crowley liked this view of the stars much better. So sorry to all the people watching the tele… 

Beneath him, dark feathers slowly began to emerge. They stretched out as far as he could manage, gathering dirt and dust as he moved and flexed them carefully at first. Already he felt slightly better, though no motion so graceful were ever going to solve his problems.

He let the lights turn back on in the cities and villages and towns, and then got to work.

To an outsider—_the_ outsider, sitting about a dozen yards off, smoking something his parents wouldn’t approve of—it would look as if a birdman had begun having a seizure in the dirt. The outsider would then, of course, set down his paraphernalia and walk away toward home, wondering to himself why his friend didn’t warn him that the supply had been laced.

Crowley stood, patting and brushing the dust out of his jacket and clothes, scrubbing it from his hair with his fingertips as oily dirt collected under his fingernails.

He opened and closed his wings a few times, spreading the dirt and working it through his feathers where it collected the excess oil and bits of dead skin. A fine powder fell from his wings to the ground as he moved, but a fair amount of dust still remained—coating each and every feather.

Not perfect, but better.

Much better.

The sun was beginning to rise when Crowley started the Bentley, his wings covered in dirt and tucked away someplace else. He drove back onto the main road, intending to go home, but ending up parked outside of an antiques shop just as the proprietor was flipping the tacky little sign in the window to open.

“Oh, good morning!” The shopkeeper said to him, his tone of voice reminding Crowley of Aziraphale—causing him to get a slightly more pleasant than usual reply from the demon than most men who encountered him.

“Suppose it is. Got anything worthwhile in this shop?”

The man seemed taken aback and gestured vaguely around his shop. Quite wisely, as if guided by a higher power, he said, “I just got a new shipment of rare books in yesterday night. They’re right back that way. Let me know if you need help getting anything from the case.”

Crowley didn’t need help getting anything. He stepped into the room, snapped his fingers, and had three rare volumes in his arms that he didn’t even know the titles of. 

“I want these,” he said, ignoring the shopkeeper’s baffled look while his fished his wallet out of his back pocket. For some reason, moving his arm caused the itching to return and he rolled his entire head with irritation as he growled. “Do you happen to sell vintage wine?” He asked, also as if guided by a higher power.

“As a matter of fact… I do have a private collection downstairs. We don’t typically sell them, but for a man of your taste…my partner and I might make an exception.”

Again, the inflection of his voice reminded the demon of Aziraphale and he got off easier than a different human might have.

“Give me the best you’re willing to part with. Red. What’s the price?”

Crowley left with two bottles of wine and three books which he set carefully in the passenger seat before gripping the steering wheel tightly.

Itchy, itchy, itchy…

He wanted to drive home, but suddenly felt like he couldn’t. It wasn’t the right place… He’d bought these books, this wine, and now had nowhere to put them.

Crowley reached up to scratch his head, realizing he still had dirt beneath his nails which he magic’d away.

Again, he let the Bentley drive him—it seeming to have a better understanding of his needs than he did at the current moment. As it sped and steered and narrowly avoided smashing into other drivers, Crowley picked at the feathers on the backs of his shoulders—painful little spindles pricking out against his will. 

Ugh, why now?

All of a sudden, the Bentley lurched to a stop, cracking the demon’s forehead on the steering wheel as it did. Freddie Mercury seemed to laugh at him and Crowley turned off the engine with a not-so-subtle hiss. 

When he turned his head to look out the window, he was face-to-face with a little Tudor-style home, all white and red with sharp angles at its pointed rooftops. A little sign said Open House and a couple families were walking in along the front pathway, outlined by low shrubs.

“No,” he said, starting the engine. “Absolutely not.” And went home.

The wine and books sat oddly and out of place on his desk where he glowered at them while sitting in his throne picking at his wings. The dirt was coming out easily enough, along with the oils and dead skin—taking some of the itch along with them. A little pile of feathers was collecting on the desk before him, a polite distance from the books and bottles. 

The pile grew larger as the sun rose and fell outside the grimy window. He needed to clean it, but couldn’t pull his fingers away from his feathers long enough to snap them and magic it done.

Itchy, itchy, itchy…

This was taking entirely too long!

With a frustrated growl, Crowley stood from his chair with enough force to knock it onto its side and fled into his spacious bathroom. He magic’d the tub to be full and steaming and twice its usual size, then grabbed jar after bottle after soap bar from his black cabinet. He was cursing each and every item as he dripped or poured or sloshed it into the water—like a witch over a steaming cauldron. He probably looked twice as insane, though there were no silent observers to the ritual this time.

Once it was all in order, he shucked off his clothes and stepped into the water—forgetting a moment to make his boots into feet until realized the water felt too hot and sting-y on his scales. He sank into the water, his knees to his chest, and tried to dip as much of his wings as he could into the water, angling himself so he could splash and rinse them one at a time. The vanes stuck to his fingers, stuck to the porcelain, stuck to everything—but the dirt was washing out, along with the grime. 

Better.

Much, much better.

He would have kept splashing around longer, but somewhere across the bathroom floor with his trousers his cell phone began to ring. Crowley hissed, more like a serpent than the bird he felt like, and elongated his body in a very unnatural way to keep his lower half in the water while his arms scrambled for the phone. He grabbed it and had to try three times to get his wet finger to unlock the screen and answer the call. 

“Hello, what’s this about?” He asked, receding into the tub as Aziraphale’ s voice filled his head.

“Ah, good evening! I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”

“No, no. Why would you think that? Why do you think it’s a bad time?” Crowley was trying to discreetly dip his left wing back into the water as it had begun to itch again in one hard-to-reach area.

“Oh—I don’t know. Just a feeling, I guess. I haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything alright? Er—Wait. That came out wrong. Clearly, you’re alright. What I meant to ask was if you were feeling okay…after Armageddon and everything.”

Crowley, quite flustered, realized he hadn’t heard much of what the angel had said at all—but he had gotten the patch of skin near the bow of his wing to stop itching.

“I’m sorry?” He asked, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder, feeling it slipping slowly—dangerously—toward the water.

“Are you… Are you alone?”

“Course I am! I’m in the bath—” Oh, damn it all! Did he really just say that out loud!?

Crowley grabbed the phone with one wet, soapy hand before it could splash into the tub.

“Oh! Why didn’t you say so! I _have_ caught you at a bad time. So sorry—perhaps you might give me a call back later tonight. Or—Or whenever you have the time. I’m terribly sorry to have intruded.”

“I answered the phone, angel. That hardly counts as intruding. What was it you said?” Crowley rolled his shoulders and sank down into the tub, submerging his wings at a very odd, cramped and uncomfortable angle. 

“I had asked if you were feeling alright…after Armageddon. Because I hadn’t heard from you.”

“I’s asleep,” Crowley slurred, having trouble forming the words in his mouth because his concentration was elsewhere—pulsing his wings a bit to force little jets of water through his feathers. “Don’t really know for how long. Has it been long?”

“That does make sense,” the angel said, something rustling in the background. The sound quality wasn’t very good over his antique telephone. “Only a couple weeks or so. Oh, now I do feel silly for worrying. It’s only natural you’d be tired.”

“’S nothing natural about it,” Crowley said, picking absently a tuft of feather that was stuck to his knee which poked out of the frothy water.

“Oh…”

“Sleeping, I meant. We don’t need it. I just like to. Sometimes.”

“Hopefully for no…no particularly…serious reason?” 

“Just like for it to be quiet sometimes. What’ve you been doing?”

It was the most laidback phone call they’d probably ever had.

It ended with plans to meet for lunch the following afternoon which sounded, in the moment, like a swell idea. It wasn’t until Crowley drained the tub and got out, until after he’d fluffed and shook and flapped his wings dry, until the itching gave way to _hurt,_ that he realized it was a terrible idea.

He sat through Aziraphale eating two plates of sushi rolls with a martini in front of him that he’d downed in two minutes, bristling every time a person would walk by their table behind him. Even with his wings tucked away into another plain, they ached as even the air shifted around him. 

“Oh—My,” Aziraphale said, chuckling and calling the demon out of his pain-addled thoughts. Crowley looked over at him and realized the angel had a small, black feather pinned between his forefinger and thumb. “I do believe this is one of yours.”

Red-hot embarrassment raced up to his cheeks and Crowley practically fell out of his seat as he shot up. 

“I have to go,” he said, unable to hear whatever it was the angel said in reply. There was a slight twinge of panic in Aziraphale’s voice, but Crowley was already out the door and in his Bentley before that realization sank in. 

He rested his head on the steering wheel a moment, then commanded the car to drive—just drive, anywhere.

This time, as if mocking him, the car stopped him in front of a crumbling two-story house in the middle of a wretched neighborhood. A man was sitting on the porch without a shirt on, texting on his phone while staring straight into Crowley’s car. There was a For Sale sign in the window of the house, but Crowley had a feeling the current tenant was not looking forward to leaving once it sold. As the man set his phone down, Crowley began to sense his negative intentions and lowered his sunglasses, showing his eyes as the man drew nearer until he saw them and fell backwards in surprise. 

Crowley took that chance to begin driving again, grumbling to himself as the Bentley led him into London. He feared a moment that it was going to take him to Aziraphale’s shop—a place he couldn’t bear to be at the moment—but then he arrived outside a vintage furniture store.

“Oh, what, you want me to strap a couch to the top of the car?” He hissed, shutting off the engine and getting out. “Maybe stick some floor lamps through the back window?” He continued muttering to himself all the way through the shop where he grabbed tickets off of various items and slapped them on the counter where a timid old lady shook with involuntary tremors as she rang him up. “You offer delivery?” He asked.

“We partner with a local business who can help. Would you like to arrange for delivery, deary?” She asked, her head even jerking this way and that from the tremors. 

“Yes. You have a card? I’ll call with the address.” He snapped his fingers before taking the card, stilling her trembling hands. She wasn’t aware her nerve endings had stopped short-circuiting until after he’d taken his hand-written receipt. 

His feathers hurt.

He drove home and laid down on his couch on his face, letting his wings out so they could stretch. He stayed that way for a long time before reaching back to begin working through his feathers, forming another pile of inky, shed feathers to accompany the one on his desk.

The next time he left his house, it was to go to Aziraphale’s shop. They drank together which had been the plan, and Crowley kept wondering why he hadn’t brought the bottles of wine he’d purchased. Aziraphale prattled on a bit about books he’d found at an estate sale, then gestured to a weird, modern art style sculpture the size of a coffee mug sitting on the end table. 

“I found that too! I don’t really know why I picked it out, don’t particularly like it… But it _spoke_ to me. Can you believe it? Haha! Must have been one of your people, unseen, whispering in my ear—tempting me to waste money on it. Hopefully I don’t Fall for giving in!” He laughed uncharacteristically boisterously while Crowley picked up the sculpture and examined it. He imagined it would probably look nice in his flat, but it certainly had no place here in Aziraphale’s shop. 

Crowley set it back down and returned his attention to his glass, shoulder rolling uncomfortably as he felt his wings dropping feathers in a realm different from the one which held the rest of him.

“You know, I almost bought another item like that… I have no idea what’s come over me,” Aziraphale was saying, chuckling to himself—seemingly unaware of the feather that had just fallen into their plain of existence and landed on the floor by Crowley’s feet.

Aziraphale began describing some sculpture he’d seen in an antique store while Crowley slowly extended his foot in hopes of covering up the feather before Aziraphale saw it. He felt so humiliated—mortification rushing through his veins as the angel’s eyes fell on his feather. 

It would have been less embarrassing to have had his fly down in the middle of the Tadfield airbase during Armageddon.

“Oh… Molting. Dreadful business,” Aziraphale said, making a sympathetic face. “I do not envy you.”

“Yes,” Crowley choked out. Embarrassment burned him as surely as holy water.

“That does explain why I caught you in the bath the other night! Why, I was wondering to myself on and on—well, not _on and on,_ but a little bit. I didn’t take you for a soak in the tub type, but if you’re molting that makes sense.”

“Can we please not talk about it?” Crowley asked, shivering a little as he picked up his feather and tucked it away in his pocket as shamefully as if it were a used tissue coated in phlegm.

He managed to swallow down another bottle of wine, then sobered up to leave—making plans for dinner three nights later. 

As he drove, he pounded his fists against the steering wheel, cursing himself and his messy excuse for wings. When he arrived home, he screamed his plants into submission, shredding one to pieces in the garbage disposal of his kitchen sink while looking out the window—through the darkness, through the buildings and trees and hills.

Something out there called to him, but he didn’t know what and he had no desire to get back in the Bentley and figure it out.

So he settled for picking apart his wings, trying to adjust and massage his feathers in a way to make the sting and ache go away. He was frustrated and nervous with no idea why. Molting was embarrassing but it wasn’t like he hadn’t caught Aziraphale with feathers sticking to his coat before. What were a few feathers between friends?

The following day, Crowley set out again in the Bentley and ended up at a clothing store he never knew existed. Probably because he didn’t do his shopping in little seaside villages two hours away. He ended up leaving with two coats that weren’t his size, a hat he wouldn’t have even worn when it was in style, and a walking stick that reminded him of one Aziraphale had carried back in the Victorian era. 

He hit several shops that day, then stumbled across the business card for the vintage furniture shop where he’d left all the things he’d purchased a week or so before.

He was meant to give them an address, but giving his just felt wrong. The things—they didn’t belong there!

Itchy, itchy, itchy!

Crowley groaned and scratched the back of his neck, wanting to untuck his wings for just a quick moment to rake his nails through the fresh plumage. 

The couches and chairs, tables and stand, they didn’t belong at his flat or anywhere! He needed all these things and yet had no place to put them.

Crowley sat in his Bentley, cursing and hissing like a snake in the parking lot of a local grocery market. He continued hissing, all the way into the store and through the aisles. His heart lurched in his chest when he gazed upon a small refrigerated section of artisanal pastries. There were tarts in three flavors with candied fruit shining behind the glass, mousse cups with ornate chocolate designs poking out from the top of their sheaths. 

All of them. He needed all of them—but where would he put them!?

( ) ( ) ( )

Crowley’s human, corporeal form had failed him.

Utterly and absolutely.

His flat was crammed full of furniture, his refrigerator full of desserts he didn’t want to eat, and he was sitting on a small square of exposed carpet crying to himself because it all felt _wrong._

His wings were out and he’d formed another pile of discarded feathers, his eyes stinging as he blinked back the useless tears he didn’t want any more than all this excess furniture. His heart ached as badly as his new layer of down, and Aziraphale’s name repeatedly flashing on his screen made it all the more awful. 

He felt as if he’d gone out of his mind. Any time he left his flat, he ended up some place unexpected—then, just last week, he’d ended up in that seaside village again to find Aziraphale walking around with a dry-cleaning bag full of shirts draped over his arm. 

What business had he in the South Downs? Who was he visiting and why?

It was impossible that he was so particular as to have his clothes cleaned at some small-time cleaner hours away from his bookshop. Not to mention the shirts had all been dark in color—unlike anything the angel would be caught dead in, let alone _alive._

There was someone else he was spending time with—some mortal, perhaps. Or worse, another angel. That would explain the strange sculptures and out-of-place pieces of décor that had turned up in his shop lately. Aziraphale was obviously adapting his tastes in hopes of impressing _someone._

He didn’t know why it upset him so much, but having the same friend for six millennia was bound to make one at least the smallest bit possessive, right? Or was that just the demon in him talking?

Crowley raked his fingers through his wings again, working out more loose feathers and straightening the rest. This molt needed to hurry up and be done with because he had had just about all he could take.

Again, his cell phone rang.

“Angel, now’s not the best time,” he said, embarrassed at how his voice wavered. He was afraid it gave him away, made obvious how distraught he was as if it had been a video call and the angel could look right at him.

“Oh… Terribly sorry. Is there anything I can do?” Aziraphale asked, sounding as apologetic as one would if they’d just run over a child’s dog.

Crowley didn’t know how to answer him, but also couldn’t bring himself to just hang up the phone.

“Why did you call?” He asked, sounding forceful instead of sad. He was pleased with himself for that.

“I… I had hoped you might be willing to…to take me to lunch tomorrow. But I can tell that I’ve intruded enough already—”

“Take you? As in _drive_ you? I thought you hated my driving. Don’t I go too fast for you?”

“Well… It is a rather long way. Bus fare is so pricey these days… And I thought maybe if you’d like to join me, we could both just ride together. There was something I wanted to show you.” His voice shook as if he were terrified and it made Crowley’s skin prickle—some of his feathers giving an ungodly itch as they raised themselves in tension. 

_Don’t you mean_ someone? Crowley thought bitterly to himself.

“Tomorrow? Ah… I suppose. I’ll pick you up at the shop then? How’s twelve o’clock sound?”

“Are you certain? I don’t want to inconvenience you. We could go another time if you like.”

“It’s fine, angel,” Crowley sighed. “Twelve?”

“Would… Would it be too much trouble to meet at my shop around ten? It’s rather far…”

_Far, is it? As far as the South Downs where you dry clean some other bloke’s shirts, perhaps?_ Crowley thought darkly to himself. 

“Ten it is, then. I’ll see you.”

“Talk soon!” Aziraphale said, trying his hardest to sound cheerful, no doubt.

It was no surprise at all that it took Crowley until just about ten o’clock the following morning to get his wings in order and his corporeal body to behave enough to leave his flat and get in the Bentley, making it to Aziraphale’s in record time—arriving a quarter of an hour late, though the angel spoke nothing of the subject.

“Good morning!” He said, smiling his usual smile while Crowley did his best impression of indifference as his shoulders rolled uncomfortably against his seat. 

“I suppose it is. Where are we heading?” He asked, groaning to himself when the angel said, in a rather hearty tone, “The South Downs! Do you know the way?”

Before he could even finish asking his question, Crowley was flooring it to the highway. 

“Y-You know the South Downs well then?” Aziraphale asked, one hand pressed to the ceiling of the car to brace himself as they sped along.

“I’ve been there recently.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Saw you there, in fact, not that long ago. Looked like you were doing laundry,” Crowley said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“Why—Why yes! As a matter of fact. I wasn’t doing laundry, though. Goodness no. I merely found myself there doing some…some shopping.”

“You have to go all the way to the South Downs to pick out shirts?” 

“Well, why were you there?”

Feeling as if he were somehow caught in a lie, a spider caught in his own web, Crowley spluttered a moment before saying, “Pastries. I wanted a strawberry tart.”

“Oh, that does sound delightful. Perhaps we could get one while were there—after lunch?”

“Yeah, sure. Fine. Whatever you want.”

They had lunch at a small but elevated restaurant, overlooking the water. Aziraphale got the Market Fish while Crowley ordered himself a Sazerac and an exceptional cut of filet mignon of which he ate more than half, which was a lot for him. Aziraphale seemed happy with his effort and ate the bites that were left, and a few nibbles of the vegetables that came on the side.

“What now, angel? Strawberry tart for dessert?” Crowley asked. 

Suddenly, he felt the mood at the table shift and his eyes fell on the white table cloth…and the little black feather laying beside his empty glass. He wanted to leap from the table and run—he wanted to sink into the ground and disappear.

Instead, he slowly reached for the feather with the intent to put it in his pocket and hide it, only Aziraphale beat him to it. Crowley’s entire body stiffened as he watched the angel regard the black feather, turning it this way and that so it shined in the light. At some angles, it looked green, others a rich purple. At every angle, though, it looked like a shed feather covered in dead skin cells and oil and dust. It was as if Aziraphale were holding up a ball of hair that had been clogging a drain over their table in this exquisite restaurant. 

“I had never noticed they had such lovely hues before,” Aziraphale said, passing Crowley one of his trademark smiles before he tucked the feather into his own pocket—his own pocket! Crowley felt the small amount of food he had eaten start to come back up his throat and had to swallow hard to keep it down. “Where were we—ah, yes. Strawberry tart!”

While Aziraphale ate his tart in the passenger seat of the Bentley, Crowley stared out the window, his face turned the opposite direction from the angel, and tried not to vomit. His feather, his feather which he dropped onto their table somehow, was in Aziraphale’s pocket. He’d picked it up, looked it all over, and put it in his pocket…. 

Oh, Crowley was really regretting eating.

“There was…something I wanted to show you, while we’re here,” Aziraphale said, calling Crowley’s attention away from the window he’d been staring out.

“Right. And what’s that?” Crowley asked. The way Aziraphale was looking at him—nervous, his hands patting his thighs, his eyes flicking down and back up every now and then—it spelled bad news.

“Well… It’s hard to explain, really. I’d like to just…show you.”

“Alright,” Crowley said, rolling his shoulders as his unseen wings gave a rather unpleasant twinge of pain. “Where am I driving?”

“Right… It’s just, er, that way,” Aziraphale said, pointing down the road. 

“Is there a lot of people there? I’m really not feeling up for a social gathering,” Crowley said, his stomach tying itself in knots as he followed Aziraphale’s instructions and drove through the little village. 

“No—There’s no people. Are you feeling alright?”

“Food’s… Ngk. I don’t eat, angel. Upsets my stomach.”

“Well, miracle it away! Really, my boy, be sensible,” Aziraphale said, his tone still sounding concerned. 

“Am I still going the right way?” Crowley asked with a heavy sigh. This area did certainly look void of people. They hadn’t passed a house or a shop in a long while.

“Yes. In fact, if you turn just there after that tree.”

“Turn where? There’s no road there!”

“It’s—yes there is! It’s just behind that rock—”

“Oh, so now it’s behind a rock, is it?”

“You’re going to miss the drive!” 

Crowley whipped the car onto the little dirt path Aziraphale had the nerve to call a drive. He followed it at a slower speed, worried the uneven terrain of the path might damage the Bentley, and squinted at the little house that started coming into view at the top of the hill.

“Oh, angel, I told you I really don’t want to meet any people today,” he said, imagining that this must be where the man with the dark shirts Aziraphale had purchased for him lived.

“And I’ve already told _you_ that you wouldn’t be,” Aziraphale said. 

“Then what are we doing here? This isn’t a shop—who lives here?”

“I do,” Aziraphale said, so quietly Crowley was certain he’d misheard him.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I do… It’s mine,” Aziraphale repeated, looking down at his feet as Crowley pulled up in front of the little house—the little cottage. 

Crowley peered at it silently, lowering his sunglasses to take in the stone walls, the tall brick chimney and sharply angled roof. It reminded him of the Tudor style home his Bentley had driven him to, only a little more Aziraphale’s style, though not completely different from his own preferences. 

“Well, that’s nice, angel. You’ve got yourself some shrubs…two stories. Room for your books.”

“There’s a nice garden out back and I think you’ll just love the kitchen.”

All of a sudden, the angel’s hand was on his shoulder and Crowley flinched so hard he smacked his head on the window.

“Oh… Oh, dear. Are you quite alright?” Aziraphale asked. 

“Fine—I’m fine,” Crowley answered, opening the door to get out. “Let’s go in then. See this kitchen you’re raving about.”

All Crowley could think was “Really? Here?” as they walked up the front walkway to the warm, red door. Aziraphale made a show of fishing the key out of his pocket—a different one from the one which held Crowley’s shed feather, thankfully—and unlocked the door. 

“I don’t have much moved in yet. I’m still deciding on where I want the shelves to go. I thought you might have an eye for these things. Your place is so tidy and the shop…well, it’s a shop. It’s rather cluttered.”

Crowley peered around at the empty space. There was a coat rack, a chair, and a very nice dining room set made of wood stained black with details of red. The chairs all matched the table and sported red cushions and two tall, black candlesticks adorned the table—red candles. It looked more like it belonged in Crowley’s flat than any place belonging to Aziraphale. 

“Do you like it?” Aziraphale asked, going to stand by the table and excitedly gesturing to it. “I picked it up at an auction just last week. I couldn’t tell you why, but it _called_ to me. I had to have it—I had to put it here.”

“I did the same thing a while back with some floor lamps,” Crowley said, after having fought rather hard to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“Oh, I could do with some floor lamps. No overhead lighting here… I really didn’t think this place out much when I purchased it. I did, however, have the inspection done and the fellow said the foundation is in tip top shape!” Aziraphale beamed at him with pride. 

“So you’ve got no lamps? No…couch. No nothing. You hardly have anything here at all, angel. How long before you move in?”

Crowley thought back to the furniture crammed into his flat, part of him feeling as suffocated as he would if he were standing in his former living room now. Was this what he was meant to do? Go find a house some place far, far away and spring it on Aziraphale? Show off the furniture he bought and ignore the absence of the one’s he’d forgotten to pick out?

“Oh, I’m not sure. It’s going to be such a lot of trouble moving the shop…closing it down.”

“So you’re leaving London all together then?” Crowley adjusted his sunglasses and moved a step back toward the door. He’d seen enough. 

“Ah—yes, I do suppose so. I might still visit from time to time.”

Might.

_Might_ still visit…from time to time. 

That was it then. They stopped Armageddon and now they went separate ways like all the centuries before—only now Aziraphale would be in the South Downs in a little cottage and Crowley would be tucked into his cramped Mayfair flat. 

“Suppose I ought to do that—go off and find myself a place,” he said. “Might start looking today, as a matter of fact. Maybe America. Yeah. Here today, America tomorrow. It really is a lovely place, but I’ve got to be going. Gotta pack.” Crowley turned away before he could see the hurt expression cross Aziraphale’s face. 

“B-But… Wait! Hang on just a moment! I haven’t even shown you upstairs.”

“I imagine it’s lovely—and empty. Just like the rest of this place,” Crowley said, gesturing to the entire world as he stumbled over to the Bentley, his knees feeling more snakey than he was comfortable with. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale shouted, standing in the doorway of his cottage—looking livid. Crowley leaned back against his car, letting it support him while his body threatened to spill him into a coil of cold scales.

His left wing was itching again.

“What is it, angel? What do you want me to say? It’s nice—It’s very lovely. Enjoy it. Enjoy being out here in the middle of nowhere with your books and that other guy’s shirts, and I’ll be in London!”

“Other guy’s _shirts?_ You really can’t be serious! Come back inside and let me finish showing you, at least! You’re in no condition to drive.”

Crowley sighed and hissed, then straightened himself from the car and walked back toward the fuming angel. He didn’t want to, and his legs were still wobbling as if his joints were made of rubber bands. 

“There we are,” Aziraphale said, shutting the door behind him as they returned to the empty front room. “Here we have the kitchen—”

“S’nice. Got appliances at least.”

“Oh, yes! Top of the line, and look! Under this countertop here, I have installed a wine cooler! Best on the market!”

“S’empty,” Crowley said, unable to find any enthusiasm. 

His shoulder kept jerking of its own accord as the itching took over the forefront of his brain.

“Well, I haven’t gotten to go to the store just yet…” Finally, Crowley’s soured mood seemed to make its way to the angel who looked disheartened as the closed the cabinet door which hid the wine cooler. “And I had rather hoped the first drinks in the house would be celebratory… I thought you might have a selection or…something.”

“Why would I have a selection for your cottage?” Crowley asked bitterly, thinking about the bottles of wine still sitting beside rare books and a pile of feathers. 

His wings were now both itching and hurting.

“Right… Staircase is this way,” Aziraphale said, going through the motions of a home tour. 

There were paintings Crowley rather liked hanging on the wall along the stairs and sparse bits of furniture in the various rooms. He liked the bed in what he took to be the guest room. It was a massive thing, a four poster, carved wood stained so dark it looked black. The sheets and blankets were all the color of wine, a mixture of velvet and silk layers. Crowley just wanted to run his hands over it.

“Did that come with the place? It’s not your style at all, angel.”

“I… I had rather hoped it would be more to your liking. You told me a while back you liked to sleep sometimes so…I picked it for you.” He was fiddling with his bow tie as he said it, hiding his expression from Crowley who was unabashedly staring. 

The bed, the table and chairs downstairs, the paintings in the stairwell…those things weren’t Aziraphale’s style at all. 

“And I bought you some shirts…in case you stayed and wanted a change of clothes. They’re in the wardrobe.”

Crowley looked from the angel, still staring downward, to the bed, to the wardrobe, back to the angel. 

“You bought these for me?—They were _my_ shirts?”

The strange things that had been appearing in Aziraphale’s shop the past month or so… They were for him?

“I wanted to ask you, Crowley, if…if you had ever thought about wanting to leave London. Try a…a change of pace.”

“What, and move here?” Crowley asked, realizing that that was, in fact, exactly what the angel was implying. _“In here?”_

Aziraphale finally looked up at him, his expression anxious—no, horrified. 

“It’s not to your liking!” He said, in the tone of someone who realized they left home with the oven on. “I should have realized a cottage was too…too mundane. My first thought was a chateau, but that’s just too much—too tacky for _me._ Then there was this little house outside of London, a little Tudor place, but…not where I wanted it. I wanted to be…alone. Er, rather…alone _with_ you.”

Only an angel could say that, could say those exact words, and make them sound so innocent. Crowley felt as if his heart would’ve melted , that he might’ve fallen to his knees in gratitude and happiness, if he weren’t too focused on trying not to scratch his wings.

“Why do you think I don’t like it?” Crowley asked, scratching the back of his neck and wishing it would somehow work to soothe his wings. 

“Do you mean to say you do?” Aziraphale asked, his smile timidly trying to come back. 

“I’d like it better if it had furniture. I-I could…I could probably find some,” he said, biting at his lip while his mind was torn between _itchy, itchy, itchy_ and formulating a plan for how he would break the news that he, too, had been buying things he didn’t particularly care for or need because he thought the angel might like them. 

“You wouldn’t mind?” Aziraphale asked.

“Bought some already,” Crowley said, staring at a corner of the bedroom instead of the angel he could feel positively glowing with happiness. 

“You… Did you say you already bought some? Oh—but you don’t mean just moving your…your things here, right?” 

Crowley had to glance down to catch the angel’s reluctant, uncomfortable expression. It was absolutely priceless.

“Well, yes. I’ll take this bed and you can have my old one. And my red leather couch can go downstairs.”

Aziraphale looked absolutely appalled.

“I’m joking, angel.”

“Oh!—Oh, good! Thank heavens.” 

“But I have…bought furniture. Haven’t had anywhere to put it. ‘S been sitting in my flat… ‘S like you said. Something told me I had to buy it. Thought maybe the molting had made me go a little bit…crazy.”

“Ah. It does tend to make one a little agitated. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to close the shop because my feathers are itching and I need to just take my wings out and scrub them.”

Crowley nodded quickly. Yes. Mmhm. Agreed. He would no more like to discuss needing to clip his toenails or wash behind his ears. (Not that he really needed to do either of those things, but he would put them on the same list as disgusting wing grooming habits.)

“Speak of the Devil,” Aziraphale said, making Crowley’s head jerk to attention. He was looking for literal Satan, even though he knew it was an expression, when he felt Aziraphale pull something from his sleeve.

Another blasted feather.

“You really are having a rough time with this molt. Have you tried, perhaps, a dust bath? They’re messy but they work _wonders.”_

“I’ve tried everything,” Crowley said, trying to snatch the feather out of Aziraphale’s hand only to have the angel put it in the same pocket as the one he’d picked up at lunch. “What are you doing? Give me that so I can burn it.”

“I like them,” Aziraphale said, walking away from the bedroom and going on down the hall to the master bedroom.

“They’re not peacock feathers! They’re mine and they’re nasty—give them here!”

“No.” And then, without missing a beat, continued, “I rather think this room would make a great library.”

“It’s meant to be a bedroom, angel. There’s a bathroom attached.”

“Well, I personally don’t need a bed because I don’t sleep. Not ever. And the bathroom can be…storage. Or for tending our wings. There’s a spacious tub in there.”

How an angel could possibly be so shameless was beyond Crowley. 

When all was said and done, it took a little over a month to get everything moved into the cottage and squared away. Aziraphale, for some reason, had started wearing the hat Crowley purchased weeks before at the vintage shop, sometimes forgetting to take it off even inside the house—even when reading the rare books Crowley had found for him. 

They had their celebratory drinks of wine, had sorted out which restaurants nearby were worth going to, which shops had the best pastries and booze. 

Crowley’s feathers had stopped dropping onto the floors as he walked around the cottage—the aching and itching fading away into pleasant nothingness. Aziraphale had made a little collection of the feathers in a drawer which Crowley made a point to burn one night while the angel was reading. Demonic flames, of course—couldn’t go burning down their home.

_Their_ home. 

Why, he really liked the sound of that.


End file.
